It’s true that abbreviations occupy less space on a page and can be pronounced with fewer In our view, there are three broad reasons why people use acronyms: Given their ubiquity both within and beyond academic writing, it is reasonable to assume that abbreviations serve a function. Here we will use the umbrella term abbreviation to refer to both acronyms and initialisms.
The technical definition of an acronym only encompasses abbreviations that are pronounced as words, such as POTUS, FEMA, or NAFTA. However, words like these actually are termed initialisms.
#WHAT IS IT CALLED WHEN YOU MAKE ABBREVIATIONS FOR WORDS FULL#
The term acronym is often misused to refer to any arrangement of letters that stand in for full words, such as PTSD, DV, or GPS. Mindful writers will notice that most abbreviations are unnecessary and will choose to replace them with the meaningful words that underlie them.
In many cases, they can confuse and alienate unfamiliar audiences, and even well-intentioned writers and speakers may overestimate an audience’s familiarity with abbreviations.Ībbreviations shouldn’t be completely avoided, but using them as a default can be problematic. We open our inboxes to find emails with the subject lines “Visit with CTSI/CRC and CHEP,” “DARPA - Next Generation Social Science (NGS2) program - Proposer’s day,” and, mysteriously, “HIPPA: BOYD.” We suspect that this experience is all too familiar to academic psychologists and to members of any group that relies heavily on abbreviations and jargon in its communication.Ībbreviations are all too common in scientific communication and are mostly unnecessary this is reason enough for conscientious writers to avoid them.
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